Wikileaks about to drop "the bombshell"

[CaptainChewbacca]

Murder is when you kill someone maliciously with intent. In this case the gunners thought they were killing armed enemy combatants WHICH IS NOT MURDER UNDER LAW.

The problem is you're taking a legal term like 'murder' and equating it to a military term 'kill'.

Murder: The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.

Here the men intended to kill, yes, but believed they were doing so under law and without malice (though malice toward ones' enemies is debatable here). Unless you can demonstrate they knew they were firing on people who were unarmed, you can't make the argument for murder because the act was lawful.

[open_sketchbook]

The bit that "tipped the scales" for me, so to speak, was when the one guy was peering around the corner, as little of him exposed as possible, holding what was perhaps a tripod or camera but verymuch looked like an empty RPG. Add to that that they were wearing tripods on slings like rifles, and the fact they were called in due to shots fired... I completely understand why they took the shot. That said, they should gather up everyone involved, try them for manslaughter, and throw them behind bars until they forget what the sun feels like; not because of their judgement, which was well within their operating procedures, but to make sure future gunners are a little bit more careful.

[Cycloneman]

Was any of that at all unclear to you? Are you still going to claim that the pilots knew those were civilians, that there was no way at all they could have made a mistake, and they flew in, saw all those people, and decided "I'm gonna murder me some civilians"? If you are then I want some fucking evidence to back that claim up.

You know what? Fuck off. You keep retreading the same goddamn argument to someone else's invisible posts. I've tried to be patient and explain my point, but you just keep trying to "nail me" on a view that I've repeatedly stated I don't have. Please, please, before you post some more stupid shit like this, just point to one fucking post of mine, one single sentence where I stated that the pilots knew that those people were civilians. Just one.

Here the men intended to kill, yes, but believed they were doing so under law and without malice (though malice toward ones' enemies is debatable here).

It uses the term "especially" for a reason. Murder is unlawful killing which is performed with the intent to kill. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

[Flagg]

Was any of that at all unclear to you? Are you still going to claim that the pilots knew those were civilians, that there was no way at all they could have made a mistake, and they flew in, saw all those people, and decided "I'm gonna murder me some civilians"? If you are then I want some fucking evidence to back that claim up.

The same applies to you, too. Prove that there was enough evidence there that they were insurgents. Literally all you have is the near orgasmic utterances of the gunner who was making claims that they were armed insurgents.

[Plekhanov]

The bit that "tipped the scales" for me, so to speak, was when the one guy was peering around the corner, as little of him exposed as possible, holding what was perhaps a tripod or camera but verymuch looked like an empty RPG. Add to that that they were wearing tripods on slings like rifles, and the fact they were called in due to shots fired... I completely understand why they took the shot. That said, they should gather up everyone involved, try them for manslaughter, and throw them behind bars until they forget what the sun feels like; not because of their judgement, which was well within their operating procedures, but to make sure future gunners are a little bit more careful.

Again Check the timeline. They asked for, received permission to open fire and were attempting to do so before they saw the guy on the corner. All they saw up to that point were men mulling about with straps over their shoulders.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If they were given the order to kill and believed it to be valid, their actions are not unlawful as per the UCMJ. They intended to kill THE ENEMY, you can't argue 'they intended to kill someone, therefore that is intent to murder', it is only murder if they knowingly tried to kill people they knew to be civilians. The burden to disobey an unlawful order is predicated on personal knowledge of those carrying the order out. These deaths were tragic, but no murder was committed by those doing the shooting.

At best its manslaughter, if they failed to follow proper ROE's.

[open_sketchbook]

The bit that "tipped the scales" for me, so to speak, was when the one guy was peering around the corner, as little of him exposed as possible, holding what was perhaps a tripod or camera but verymuch looked like an empty RPG. Add to that that they were wearing tripods on slings like rifles, and the fact they were called in due to shots fired... I completely understand why they took the shot. That said, they should gather up everyone involved, try them for manslaughter, and throw them behind bars until they forget what the sun feels like; not because of their judgement, which was well within their operating procedures, but to make sure future gunners are a little bit more careful.

Again Check the timeline. They asked for, received permission to open fire and were attempting to do so before they saw the guy on the corner. All they saw up to that point were men mulling about with straps over their shoulders.

True, but I'm just a dude sitting behind a monitor sipping tea, not an adrenalin-hopped helicopter gunner in a whirling, vibrating steel coffin who really needs to pee, is currently overheating like a motherfucker in his giant helmet, and is aware that if they are insurgents and he doesn't shoot them, they're going to continue to try and kill my comrades-in-arms down the line, all after you told a bunch of people who have even less awareness of the situation that there are a big group of young healthy men down there carrying something slung over their shoulders and shots had been reported fired just shortly before. I think the guy can be excused for coming to a damning conclusion earlier than I did, though again I think that they shouldn't escape consiquence for this.

[TithonusSyndrome]

True, but I'm just a dude sitting behind a monitor sipping tea, not an adrenalin-hopped helicopter gunner in a whirling, vibrating steel coffin who really needs to pee, is currently overheating like a motherfucker in his giant helmet, and is aware that if they are insurgents and he doesn't shoot them, they're going to continue to try and kill my comrades-in-arms down the line

Why give them the benefit of the doubt? He could just as easily be an asshole silently praying for the opportunity to be let off the leash, and the way he gnaws at the bit when waiting for the order, I wouldn't consider calling his impartiality into question anywhere beyond reasonable.

[Cycloneman]

If they were given the order to kill and believed it to be valid, their actions are not unlawful as per the UCMJ. They intended to kill THE ENEMY, you can't argue 'they intended to kill someone, therefore that is intent to murder', it is only murder if they knowingly tried to kill people they knew to be civilians. The burden to disobey an unlawful order is predicated on personal knowledge of those carrying the order out. These deaths were tragic, but no murder was committed by those doing the shooting.

At best its manslaughter, if they failed to follow proper ROE's.

Okay, hypothetical: I have a gun, and somebody is around who I believe is a threat to my person, and I act in self defense and shoot them dead. However, it turns out they were unarmed. A reasonable person in my situation would not have come to the same conclusions I did. Is that murder?

I think the guy can be excused for coming to a damning conclusion earlier than I did, though again I think that they shouldn't escape consiquence for this.

That's what the word "excused" means.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Oh, really. Let's summarize: we have an armoured gunship manned by a trained, professional crew hovering over what is presumably a densely populated area wherein the distinction between hostiles and innocent civilians is obviously fuzzy. We also have a chain of command which is presumably fully aware of the problems associated with visual identification by a loitering aerial platform, a chain of command I might add which answers to a political body which drones on and on and on about winning the "hearts and minds" of the local populace. We have precisely zero extenuating circumstances: no troops are under fire from these 'insurgents', there isn't a giant battle raging, the gunship isn't being shot at with MANPADs or anything more hostile than a mild glare.

Yet. RPGs can and have taken down helicopters. And you're just cheerfully ignoring the fact that flyboys in WW2 were just as well trained, and they sound like Abbott and Costello when it comes to target ID. Should get Stuart in here to explain in some detail, but really, before you yap on like this, get in a small plane and fly at low altitude over a highway and try to identify the make and model of cars, because that's really the kind of level of differentiation required to tell a camera and an RPG apart in those circumstances.

And yet in no more than two minutes flat the clowns in charge of this lethal weapons platform decide that yeah, they're justified in blowing the shit out of this group of random people milling about some square without any obvious hostile intentions, permission for which is promptly given by a command element entirely at the word of some orbiting prick at the wheel of an AH-64. There's no double-checking, no 'let's vector in some guys to make sure we're not blowing away another group of random nobodies', just "uh, you are free to engage". And you would call this "perfectly understandable"? Are you kidding me? I would much sooner say, what the fuck are you people smoking if your ROE condone this sort of atrocious cowboy behaviour in the middle of a city of 6,5 million?

The quicker you kill the enemy the safer your buddies are. The ROE follows the Geneva conventions: Winning with the minimum possible civilian casualties. It would be impossible to use air support with an ROE which prevented this kind of mistake.

[open_sketchbook]

I think the guy can be excused for coming to a damning conclusion earlier than I did, though again I think that they shouldn't escape consiquence for this.

That's what the word "excused" means.

Not quite. It's a difference of degrees; he should not be charged with murder because one can see how he could have come to the conclusion that opening fire would be the correct thing to do. However, what occured cannot be brushed off; if he simply made a mistake or was a sociopath has little bearing on anything and would be awful hard to prove either way. More logical to simply try him for manslaughter.

[Mr. Coffee]

You know what? Fuck off. You keep retreading the same goddamn argument to someone else's invisible posts. I've tried to be patient and explain my point, but you just keep trying to "nail me" on a view that I've repeatedly stated I don't have. Please, please, before you post some more stupid shit like this, just point to one fucking post of mine, one single sentence where I stated that the pilots knew that those people were civilians. Just one.

Pretty much every time you insist on calling it murder. But I guess we're fucking arguing past each other, so fuck it. Let's move the fuck on then...

The same applies to you, too. Prove that there was enough evidence there that they were insurgents. Literally all you have is the near orgasmic utterances of the gunner who was making claims that they were armed insurgents.

Problem is, I'm not making any claims either way. I have no fucking clue because I wasn't there, and the only thing we have to go on grainy as fuck guncam footage and the dialogue. What I've been saying is that the pilots intended to kill civilians is not the only possibility. Like I said before, we are talking about the US Military here which doesn't exactly have the best track record for not blowing the wrong thing up (no offense to our US Military prior or current service members).

[Cycloneman]

The quicker you kill the enemy the safer your buddies are. The ROE follows the Geneva conventions: Winning with the minimum possible civilian casualties. It would be impossible to use air support with an ROE which prevented this kind of mistake.

Wait, the ROE allows/asks you to open fire on a person with no apparent hostile intent moving a wounded person?

[CJvR]

Check the timeline. They asked for, received permission to open fire and were attempting to do so before they saw the guy on the corner. All they saw up to that point were men mulling about with straps over their shoulders.

So? I just said when I would have asked for permission to fire.

[Mr. Coffee]

The quicker you kill the enemy the safer your buddies are. The ROE follows the Geneva conventions: Winning with the minimum possible civilian casualties. It would be impossible to use air support with an ROE which prevented this kind of mistake.

Wait, the ROE allows/asks you to open fire on a person with no apparent hostile intent moving a wounded person?

It does when you consider the track record the bad guys in Iraq like to do so in order to recover their wound, or weapons, or generally try to police the scene in order to make us look badworse.

[Plekhanov]

Yet. RPGs can and have taken down helicopters.

Have AK47s? Because that's all they thought they'd seen in the 90 seconds it took to request permission to fire, receive it and trying to start.

And you're just cheerfully ignoring the fact that flyboys in WW2 were just as well trained, and they sound like Abbott and Costello when it comes to target ID. Should get Stuart in here to explain in some detail, but really, before you yap on like this, get in a small plane and fly at low altitude over a highway and try to identify the make and model of cars, because that's really the kind of level of differentiation required to tell a camera and an RPG apart in those circumstances.

How are the difficulties of pilots in a total war against opponents with near equivalent abilities supposed to be relevant to an Apache over occupied Baghdad in 2007?

Besides this isn't a case of telling a camera from an rpg as they were already trying to open fire before they saw the camera.

The quicker you kill the enemy the safer your buddies are. The ROE follows the Geneva conventions: Winning with the minimum possible civilian casualties. It would be impossible to use air support with an ROE which prevented this kind of mistake.

Really so there are no conceivable ROE which would prevent gunships of an occupying force trying to 'win hearts and minds' from requesting and receiving permission to open up within 90 seconds of seeing guys posing no threat to anyone, strolling round in the open with straps over their shoulders?

[Simon_Jester]

...Any engagement started by aerial visual identification of the target is virtually guaranteed to result in the target that is attacked not actually being what it is identified as, to this day, since there's no way to improve the human eyeball against sitting in a vibrating contraption at altitude and angle to what you're going after. The misidentification in short is the perfectly understandable part of this event and basically an inevitable fact of combat air support.

Very true, which is one of the reasons I think that part of the problem is the doctrine and rules of engagement. In a situation where groups of civilians with perfectly legitimate reasons to move around and carry equipment are going to be mixed in with the guerilla types who are carrying weapons, does it make sense to say "OK, we'll have gunships orbiting over the city and clear them to shoot anyone they tell us is carrying a weapon?" Given that the past hundred years are rife with cases of an air attack hitting the wrong target, or hitting something that isn't a target at all, or hitting the first thing they see without even bothering to consider whether it's the target... this may be an unavoidable problem that needs to be taken into account by occupation forces.

Of course, there's a problem with that:

The quicker you kill the enemy the safer your buddies are. The ROE follows the Geneva conventions: Winning with the minimum possible civilian casualties. It would be impossible to use air support with an ROE which prevented this kind of mistake.

This presents us with an either/or choice:
-Prevent air support from killing random unlucky people who are mistaken for enemies, at the cost of making it useless, or
-Allow air support to kill random unlucky people who are mistaken for enemies, while giving it ROE that make it useful.

Now, I'm not going to assert that there's an intermediate range of options. I'm just going to ask: is there? Because this kind of thing is a really serious dilemma. The propaganda effect really hurts us. Is there no solution, no "be a little more careful," no "don't just wishful-think your way into shooting up people you can't see clearly?"

Maybe not. If so, then we may never be able to occupy territory without becoming the villains of the piece in the eyes of the world, because there's no way to do it consistent with not getting our own soldiers killed. If so, then we need to take that into account in future wars, as an article of faith: any nation building plan that requires a prolonged occupation of guerilla-infested territory will lead to a slew of incidents where our forces kill random unlucky people because they got mistaken for enemies. And this will predictably interfere with our ability to convince people in the occupied country of our good intentions, and predictably harm our international standing, no matter what we do or say while protesting our honorable motive of protecting Our Boys.

Sound reasonable?
____________

Aside from that, I think some of the people on the "don't blame the helicopter guys as much as D.A. wants to" side are misunderstanding the arguments against them.

So nevermind that Corporal K just showed "hey it's a giant fucking grey area"...

Now, I don't actually disagree about the "no evidence to support they did it on purpose bit." But I do disagree with the "giant fucking gray area" bit, because the bit DA was actually talking about (Article 18) isn't. It goes:

"Art. 18. The military authorities may appeal to the charity of the inhabitants voluntarily to collect and care for, under their direction, the wounded and sick, granting persons who have responded to this appeal the necessary protection and facilities. Should the adverse Party take or retake control of the area, he shall likewise grant these persons the same protection and the same facilities.

The military authorities shall permit the inhabitants and relief societies, even in invaded or occupied areas, spontaneously to collect and care for wounded or sick of whatever nationality. The civilian population shall respect these wounded and sick, and in particular abstain from offering them violence.

No one may ever be molested or convicted for having nursed the wounded or sick..."

Now, we can argue that the Iraqi guerillas aren't covered by the Geneva conventions (mostly on account of not carrying insignia recognizable from a distance). So it is possible to interpret this as a non-violation. That it's perfectly all right to shoot someone who runs to the aid of someone who you've decided is an Iraqi guerilla after they are wounded. And to shoot the van they rode in on.

But that's lawyering the passage pretty damn far, I'd say. Especially when your identification of the first guy as an actual guerilla is kind of questionable because you did it from a helicopter a long way away. Why is it worth the effort to do that much lawyering in this case?

On the other hand, I think some of the people on D.A.'s side of the line are pushing it a bit.

These aren't some ultra vulnerable infantry guys within easy range of small arms but circling above in armoured gunships, they could have looked a little harder and longer without being "vulnerable to the kind of tactics that belong in bad movies".

Yeah, they could have. Then note the moment when they thought one of the guys was carrying an RPG. While AK fire will almost certainly not cause major damage to an Apache, an RPG can blow through it like it was made of cardboard. And there is no reason to expect them NOT to have RPGs if they're armed at all.

They got the identification wrong in the first place, but their real mistake was assuming guys carrying stuff with straps were carrying weapons. Once they had made that mistake, all their other actions followed predictably from the premise that the group was armed. So while I do blame them for the whole incident, because of their interpretation of a grainly elongated blob as an automatic rifle or a rocket launcher... I don't blame them for not coming in closer after they made that interpretation.

[open_sketchbook]

Yet. RPGs can and have taken down helicopters.

Have AK47s? Because that's all they thought they'd seen in the 90 seconds it took to request permission to fire, receive it and trying to start.

Yes, frequently. In fact, you might have better odds with a rifle than with an RPG. Helicopters are not exactly armoured.

[CJvR]

Okay, hypothetical: I have a gun, and somebody is around who I believe is a threat to my person, and I act in self defense and shoot them dead. However, it turns out they were unarmed. A reasonable person in my situation would not have come to the same conclusions I did. Is that murder?

Are you acting as a civilian or as a soldier in a combat situation? As a civilian you will be in trouble if the victim wasn't damn threatening for real. As a soldier in combat you have to screw up monumentaly and usually in front of media to get into any serious trouble. The thresholds are vastly different between civilian society and military units in combat.

[Commander 598]

The bit that "tipped the scales" for me, so to speak, was when the one guy was peering around the corner, as little of him exposed as possible, holding what was perhaps a tripod or camera but verymuch looked like an empty RPG. Add to that that they were wearing tripods on slings like rifles, and the fact they were called in due to shots fired... I completely understand why they took the shot.

Speaking of "the one guy", he was apparently this close to the guys on the ground:



It's supposedly his picture.

[Aaron]

Yes, frequently. In fact, you might have better odds with a rifle than with an RPG. Helicopters are not exactly armoured.

Uh, Apaches are. I forget the exact specs but it's definitely resistant to rifle fire.

Edit:

[quote="GS.org
The Apache has a full range of aircraft survivability equipment and has the ability to withstand hits from rounds up to 23mm in critical areas. The AH-64 is air transportable in the C-5, C-141 and C-17.[/quote]

Now, I still wouldn't be thrilled about taking rounds from an AK but I wouldn't be shitting my pants like it's a ZSU-23-4 either.

[Aaron]

Yes, frequently. In fact, you might have better odds with a rifle than with an RPG. Helicopters are not exactly armoured.

Uh, Apaches are. I forget the exact specs but it's definitely resistant to rifle fire.

Edit:

The Apache has a full range of aircraft survivability equipment and has the ability to withstand hits from rounds up to 23mm in critical areas. The AH-64 is air transportable in the C-5, C-141 and C-17.

Now, I still wouldn't be thrilled about taking rounds from an AK but I wouldn't be shitting my pants like it's a ZSU-23-4 either.

Edit: Shit double post. Can a mod lend a hand?

[CJvR]

Ah, that's why the pilot said he was taking a shot - which sadly was true but with a camera instead of a gun.

[Plekhanov]

Again Check the timeline. They asked for, received permission to open fire and were attempting to do so before they saw the guy on the corner. All they saw up to that point were men mulling about with straps over their shoulders.

True, but I'm just a dude sitting behind a monitor sipping tea, not an adrenalin-hopped helicopter gunner in a whirling, vibrating steel coffin who really needs to pee, is currently overheating like a motherfucker in his giant helmet, and is aware that if they are insurgents and he doesn't shoot them, they're going to continue to try and kill my comrades-in-arms down the line, all after you told a bunch of people who have even less awareness of the situation that there are a big group of young healthy men down there carrying something slung over their shoulders and shots had been reported fired just shortly before. I think the guy can be excused for coming to a damning conclusion earlier than I did, though again I think that they shouldn't escape consiquence for this.

"steel coffin" Over dramatise much how were the helicopter crew in personal danger from a bunch of guys mooching around in the open a substantial distance off with what may have been AKs?

Also are you seriously saying that the guys hanging round in the square look in the least bit like a group which 28 minutes ago attacked occupying troops? Do insurgents trying to get away after attacking US ground forces in Baghdad 2007 just stroll about in the open like that whilst helicopters circle overhead?

You can try to make this sound like some kind of every second counts situation with dangerously stressed helicopter crew but that's a hard sell when the video tells an utterly different story.

[Master of Ossus]

"steel coffin" Over dramatise much how were the helicopter crew in personal danger from a bunch of guys mooching around in the open a substantial distance off with what may have been AKs?

Also are you seriously saying that the guys hanging round in the square look in the least bit like a group which 28 minutes ago attacked occupying troops? Do insurgents trying to get away after attacking US ground forces in Baghdad 2007 just stroll about in the open like that whilst helicopters circle overhead?

You can try to make this sound like some kind of every second counts situation with dangerously stressed helicopter crew but that's a hard sell when the video tells an utterly different story.

Frankly, they did look pretty suspicious. I can understand how the mistake was made. There are a lot of factors that probably went into this. Confirmation bias: once you're "sure" of something, your perceptions of it will tend to conform to your initial impression; also the fact that these guys were walking around in a big group carrying things that cuold easily be mistaken for weapons near a recent shooting in a war zone.